The lack of employment/Laid off/Thread

xiced: Many places have caught on to the 'showing up' to 'online application only' outfits trick; HR publications now urge HR droids to roundfile the resume of people that do this as a general rule. The idea is 'if they can't follow the instructions now...'. In addition, many companies have security to prevent 'cold' visitors so that won't work out well. There IS a special case to this, but only after you've gotten an interview appointment, and I'll go into that later.

Eugh, no wonder none of my friends can find jobs, they keep going in person because all of our other friends who have or have had jobs keep telling them to...

I suppose I'll keep that in mind during my new job hunt. now that I have experience, time to look for a better job..."better" being a relative term. :cough:
 
Good advice from Spectre there - for non Americans he is correct about the applications process - everything is a test.

So Cover letter/eMail must be perfectly spelt and grammatical. It is about 30% of the application so screw it up and your CV/Resume will not get read. And make it relevant to the job you are going for, that is do not have one generic one but redesign it for each opportunity.

Never ever be late for an interview, be no more than 10 mins early and no less than 5 so the it can start on time. The recruiter's time is valuable and remember that.

Rehearse the difficult questions with a friend. Avoid saying um or er. ... There is loads but Spectre has done a stonking job of putting the important stuff down.
 
Final item for the day, and I cannot emphasize this enough: EVERYTHING IS A TEST IN THE APPLICATION PROCESS. You are being tested on, among other things:
Your ability to communicate clearly, effectively and efficiently.
Your mental flexibility.
Your punctuality.
Your ability to commit and follow up.
Your ability to work with others.
Your emotional stability

I believe I have none of those things :p
 
Thanks for the advice Spectre. I figured everything was a test, which is why I spend a good length of time on every cover letter proof-reading to make sure I don't leave a stupid mistake in it.

I also have some, fairly obvious, advice gleaned from my many applications: Sites like careerbuilder don't work. Most of the time the HR department at whatever company you're applying at doesn't even get the resume and cover letter. If you're going to use it, make sure you apply only on the company's website, not on the careerbuilder site. I spent months wondering why I received only 1 reply to 300 resumes.
 
Some obvious things - if you get an interview you have the job, now DON'T loose it.

You may luck out to a better qualified candidate but you would not be in the interview if they think that you can not do the job. Don't slouch or look out of the window. ...

Have some questions for the end of the end of the interview - a good one is "How did this job become available". Oh do some research on the internet about the organisation.
 
zookiemike, how about skilled trades (Auto mechanic, electrician, plumber, HVAC technician)? You have to get licensed by taking a 2-year college course, but the pay will be much better than working in a factory.
What has come to my attention via mother reading the job section of the paper which usually for my town has a whopping 5 listings, what pops up a lot is driving jobs. This is a car forum, most of us would probably not be totally miserable doing that and it would at least beat bottom rung retail if you have no where else to go. Also hairdressing, which is an option for miata drivers. :p
 
MWF, I knew he had a new job this week but a hairdresser just because he has the car for it? :lol:

I have met him IRL and he does not strike me as such.
 
I was poking fun at the general stereotype :p

Also I get my hair cut by a middle age man in concert shirts and motorcycle boots. Who has mounted car parts to the wall of the salon.
 
Spectre , Thank you. That has to be some of the most honest and well put together information i have yet to read.

See what im working with is a ton of experience and no piece of legit paper to say so...
I'm spread a little thin. I wish i could have been placed in one area and just been left there, But with whole "Lean manufacturing" Process being so emphasizing on cross training and production numbers its up to me to retain as much info as i can.
I have experience in vertical Haas and cnc lathes. I know setups and editing pretty well. I also know about renishaw touch probes and programs. I have experience with a couple different cmm machine programs too. I was almost at a level two as an operator. We dealt with very tight tolerances and i know how to read blue prints and matrix's pretty good. Not great, But im ok on my own.
I was doing NDT and was an apprentice for about a year. The company went all change happy and decided i no longer needed that cert so they booted me to a finish grind job.

I found out they kept the newer guys and booted out some of the more experienced people...pay scale. If The can save a buck here or there. Thats this company. The whole degree thing ITS BULL SHIT. I found myself playing engineer to the engineers. Those book happy fools dont know dirt from dick. All them kids fresh out of school...man.. It made life hard. Change this, change that.. didn't work what should we do Mike? It got old.. Im ok with helping but im not a cheat sheet. I will find something. Driving jobs are a great idea. Factory work, cool. I can run Haas cnc controls, Not the most versed else where. Im a wrench by trade. I love working on cars. I would like to pursue it, But i dont have $20k to flip to the tool guy. It takes money to make it. Im intent on trying to get some formal training. My mathematics skills are pretty poor as of late. But i do have a fairly large vocabulary and my ability to converse and relay information is strong. I can hold some ground. Verbalization is a huge part to obtaining any job in ANY field i believe.

TX huh... We will see man. I do drive a truck :lol:
 
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Something I've noticed in my 8 months at my current job. There's not very many young people taking construction jobs like pipe fitters, electricians, etc. These people are aging and they're what keep us all at our office cubicles and whatnot. What happened? Same with road construction crews....
 
Something I've noticed in my 8 months at my current job. There's not very many young people taking construction jobs like pipe fitters, electricians, etc. These people are aging and they're what keep us all at our office cubicles and whatnot. What happened? Same with road construction crews....

Sadly, the answer to that is political. Unfortunately, there will likely be few openings in those fields for some time to come.

Anyway, Original Poster: I rolled past the Halliburton plant in Carrollton Texas and they are so short of help they have a big sign out front advertising that they are seeking mechanical engineers... and CNC machinists.

Worth checking out.
 
Awesome advice Spectre. I'll be sure to reference it, one good thing: Lebanon is super close by...had no clue they were looking for workers though o_O

Something I've noticed in my 8 months at my current job. There's not very many young people taking construction jobs like pipe fitters, electricians, etc. These people are aging and they're what keep us all at our office cubicles and whatnot. What happened? Same with road construction crews....

TBH, I think it's because people are pushing 4 year college like it's no one's business. Looking back, If I knew what I know now, I would have just aimed for a associates degree, start working in low level IT and go back on my own time to complete it while working.

In other news, I've finally dug out the external hard drive and am polishing up my resume. My main point of contention is my education. Should I pull the fact that I even attended college, my GPA, expected graduation date, etc.?

Here it is, tweaked for the gig i'm applying for: http://www.4shared.com/document/8xwO1gMI/Resume_2011FG.html
 
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Since we have some good advice about job hunting here, I'm going to add some points about creating a good resume/CV.

First of all, and this is important, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T USE MICROSOFT WORD'S RESUME TEMPLATES...THEY SUCK BALLS. Here's why:

-They have a lot of stuff in the template that you not only don't need (objectives belong in your cover letter, not on your resume), but shouldn't be putting on your resume in the first place.
-They tend to look like crap.
-A template resume shows you put as little effort into your salesmanship as possible. Whether this is due to laziness (bad) or lack of computer skills (equally bad) isn't important, it shows a total lack of effort on your part.

You need to think of your resume as an advertisement for yourself - make sure it is pleasing to the eye yet not unprofessionally styled. It should contain all relevant information for the position you're applying for, yet not be long-winded. On the subject of length, the shorter your resume is, the better; a good rule of thumb is that it should be one single-sided page for every 20 years of your life. Since most of us here are between 20 and 30, two single-sided pages is more than adequate. Where I work, I've been known to take everything beyond the first two pages and chuck it in the trash...if you can't summarise yourself in that length of time, too bad.

So, what should you have on your two-page resume? First and foremost, in big, obvious letters at the top should be your name and contact information, including the best phone number to be reached at and a professional-looking email address; don't use your sexyhot6969xo@hotmail.com address. This header should be at the top of every page of your resume, and it should be separated from the body by a single line border, as you would expect any good corporate letterhead to be.

Next, you should detail your relevant work experience. Indicate where you worked and when you worked there, as well as provide a brief description of what your responsibilities were. The length of your description should be inversely proportional to the specialisation and level of responsibility of your job. If you sold TVs at at Best Buy, you probably don't need to say anything about that. If you were the SMS Manager for an charter airline with direct reports, for example, I would expect at least a couple of sentences. Don't bother detailing the eight or ten McJobs you worked in high school and college, especially if you quit/were fired after only six weeks.

After that, put a brief description of what you like to do in your off-time. This shows that you're a human being who could potentially get along with your co-workers, as opposed to a cold, WorkBot 9001 who couldn't socialise if its existence depended on it. That said, saying something like "my interests include eating scrap metal, cliff diving into shallow water, shooting heroin and drinking until I black out" isn't a good idea.

Finally, you should provide two or three references that will portray you in a positive light and that can be contacted with a relative lack of difficulty. Don't put "references available by request"; I don't want to have to call you long-distance to find out who I can and cannot call, only to find out that they are unreachable. One of these references can be a character reference; in fact, I would highly encourage you to have one, no matter what your applying for.
 
You can get some good, professional-looking, sophisticated resume templates here.

And yes, they're in Word format. I do mine in Adobe InDesign because I'm motherfucking fancy like that.

http://img242.imageshack.**/img242/5506/272961007357b1a94c1cek2.jpg
 
Final item for the day, and I cannot emphasize this enough: EVERYTHING IS A TEST IN THE APPLICATION PROCESS. You are being tested on, among other things:
Your ability to communicate clearly, effectively and efficiently.
Your mental flexibility.
Your punctuality.
Your ability to commit and follow up.
Your ability to work with others.
Your emotional stability, i.e., how desperate are you. (Visibly desperate people do not get good jobs.)

I'm boned. :p
 
Sadly, the answer to that is political. Unfortunately, there will likely be few openings in those fields for some time to come.

Anyway, Original Poster: I rolled past the Halliburton plant in Carrollton Texas and they are so short of help they have a big sign out front advertising that they are seeking mechanical engineers... and CNC machinists.

Worth checking out.
The place where one of my Mom's friend works has a similar shortage in work, there seems to be less and less machinists out there. Kind of makes me wish I choose machine tech instead because they have no problem keeping machinists but all their old ones are retiring.
 
Our scary friend isn't wrong. I started a new job last Monday and even though the Sales Director is a guy with whom I worked years ago who knows exactly how capable I am the MD had certain reservations (this guy is so fucking perceptive it's petrifying!) there was still a nervous wait. Especially as I was advised they would get back to me the following morning and in the end I was virtually a nervous wreck following Spectre's advice and waiting until just after 3 in the afternoon.

Good news is I did get the job, started last Monday and can say with certainty already that having been in the same industry for 16 years this is without a doubt the best place I have ever worked and somewhere I can really, really shine. Previous job (and the one before that to be frank) they demanded results but didn't provide the back up and resources to achieve it in a realistic fashion whereas now I have everything required at my disposal to make a real impact!

:D

Good luck to everyone here. As Spectre said you have better mobility than any previous generation has ever enjoyed. Use that to your advantage and if you are looking in Texas then use him too. While he may come across as a bit of a know-it-all from time to time and have a tendency to ram his point home with a steam-powered jackhammer he has a wealth of local knowledge and as several regulars can testify is also a bit of a Good Samaritan. If he can help you in any way he can, as long as you are willing to listen to and act upon his advice, then he will.
 
Well thanks man. i will certainly give strong consideration to that. I know that im not bad off. even as it stands, Im making enough to scrape by in unemployment. I just hate feeling like a bum. I love working. Its been the only constant in my life. All the women screwed me over, And most my friends are goons. Me having the same schedule every day has kept me sain. Time to get my ass back in school and get shit done.
 
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